It is standard to mount a hand shower on a vertical wall-mounted rod for stationary use of the hand shower. Normally a releasable holder bracket or clamp is provided for moving the hand shower up and down on the rod to adjust its vertical position.
The holder bracket can comprise as described in German patent 2,342,613 of U. Koch a support body that surrounds the rod and that is provided internally with a pair of tapered seats on which ride split rings that are braced against a spring such that they normally contract radially and tightly engage the rod. To move the rod, at least one of the rings must be pushed in against the spring force to spread it and allow it to release the rod. In this arrangement the support body has a pin on which the hand shower is fitted.
In German utility model 75 21 122 assigned to Hans Grohe KG a wedge in the support body rides on a surface that extends at an angle to the rod and a spring urges the wedge axially in a direction camming the wedge against the rod. To move the holder bracket, the wedge is pressed oppositely, thereby freeing the support body from the rod.
A simpler system that does not require special actuation of the bracket to allow it to be shifted axially on the rod is described in German utility model 18 39 393 of F. Florenz. This system has an elastomeric liner in the bracket that engages the rod with some friction so as to resist sliding of the bracket along the rod unless pushed with quite some force.
Commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 5,265,833 describes a mounting bracket for a hand shower that has a support adapted to be fixed to the wall-mount rod, a holder formed with a forked seat shaped to receive the stem of the hand-shower, and interengaging formations on the holder and support for pivoting of the holder on the support about a normally horizontal axis while retaining the holder and support against relative axial movement. An array of radially extending ridges formed on the support, surrounding the axis, and projecting toward the holder engage with complementary ridges formed on a flange of a retaining element rotationally coupled to the holder. A locking bolt axially fixed in the support axially presses the retaining-element ridges against the support ridges so that the holder can be pivoted about the axis on the support with elastic deformation of the flange.
All these systems function well at least when new. When worn or when soap gets into them they tend to loosen and allow the shower to slip on the rod. The manually actuated systems are clumsy to use and also often loosen as they wear.